The Musquodoboit Muffin 2025

 Sunday, November 16th,

The Musquodoboit Muffin. Distance is approximately 19 km, and 700 m elevation gain, with about 11km of technical wilderness singletrack, and 8km of flat railtrail.

Start is at 9 am at Crawford's Falls. Registration is on the morning of, and closes at 8:30 at the start/finish line. Registration is $20 cash, and waivers must be signed at registration. 

There is a four hour(1pm) cutoff at about the fifteen km mark. This is the intersection of Gibraltar (south exit) and the rail trail. I fast walked the 4.2 km railtrail section together with the 10 km North Ridge trail with many stops, within four hours. The reason for a cutoff time is for safety concerns, since sunset will be at 4:45 pm, having runners finish within daylight hours.

There is parking on both sides of the bridge. There are no facilities at the start/finish. The start finish location is on Highway 357 (aka Meagher's Grant Rd) approximately 13km from the Musquodoboit Harbour Library.  Coordinates of the start/finish are:  44.872673, -63.220254.

  

The are no feed stations on the trail. All runners must have at minimum a pack, a rain shell, a fully charged mobile phone, snacks and water. I highly recommend at least two hundred calories of snacks, and at least two litres of water.

Current drought conditions have left only one stream that is accessible on the ten km wilderness trail. If you plan on using stream water bring a portable filter or treatment tablets. Do not drink this water unfiltered as there are beaver dams at the source of this stream!

The trail is marked with the existing  red metal tags on trees (a few fallen).Blue flagging tape, and volunteers will be at intersections to give direction.

 

As usual there are no awards or prizes for this event. There are muffins at the finish.

  

If you have not run this trail before you are in for a real treat, but please be aware of the extreme technical and physical demands especially of the middle10km section. It may sound shortish but the distance is compounded by all steep ascents and descents and numerous hops skips and jumps between boulders, and over roots. There are no flat straight sections in this segment of the trail. Trail specific running shoes are highly recommended. .

miniMuffin Results 2024

 

Here are the results of the 2024 23 kilometre miniMuffin trail run.  It is also a list of the the toughest of the toughest that ran some of the hardest and most technical hills around. Congratulations everyone for a tremendous day of exciting firsts, longests, and fastests! Also thank you very much to the wonderful volunteers for making time for the event on the beautiful Musquodoboit trails!

Time is time of day. Run started at 9 a.m.

Name               Time of Day

Nat C             1:36 p.m

Adam  M .         1:25

Christine A       12:53

Jacob T            1:23

Madison T        1:23

Aaron R            12:49

Jimmy L            2:00

Kenny S            12:18

Justin S             12:12

Colin B              12:35

Jodi I                  11:41

Jeff M                12:25

Alexander S        12:12

Matt M                2:59

Wade S                2:59

Sasha S                2:59

Michael G           11:44

Chris M               12:25

Muffin M              12:08       

MiniMuffin 2024

https://api.sports-tracker.com/apiserver/v1/workouts/export/AG4Y_8B9cXn7iNADT6jCcRrOaMP9sTjPNJbaDyOPtvxHB4ehYl9gaGa6qzeGrhYJnA==?brand=SUUNTOAPP

UPDATE November 17th: Different start location, and course length.

The 22 kilometre MiniMuffin run is a revised version of the former MegaMuffin run for this year due to delayed maintenance on the northern end of the railbed. It is a 3-6 hour run/power hike including 16 kilometre of technical singletrack with about 860 metres of ascent and descent, and about 7 km of flat rail trail running. It is a very physically demanding course. 

There are no aid stations on the course.

Cutoff  is at 2:00 pm  at the 16km point, at the entrance to Admiral Lake Loop  (following the South Ridge loop and the rail trail return). The cutoff is to keep the event in daylight hours. Sunset is 5 pm on November 24.

Highly recommend

Lugged grippy trail running shoes
A running pack
Fully charged phone
Small first aid kit with tensor bandage, and duct tape
Small knife
Whistle
Lots of snacks= 500 calorie range
Water bladder or flasks for at least a litre, and a mini water filter, or purification tablets
Extra buff
Lightweight waterproof breathable shell!!! 
Compass
Headlamp
Toque and Gloves (watch the forecast)
A watch that gives distance

Start location: 

44°47'30.0"N 63°08'59.4"W

Registration is at the event between 7:30 and 8:30 on November 24. Start time is 9 a.m.  Cost is $20 cash. All proceeds go to Musquodoboit Trailways association. 

There is a waiver to sign at the time of registration.

2023 MegaMuffin Run

 2023 Mega Muffin Run

The Mega Muffin Run takes place Sunday, November 26. Approximately 32 km with about 11km on railtrail and 19km on remote wilderness single track. The run is unsupported(no aid stations),  and runners are responsible for carrying:

Fully charged mobile phone

Small first aid kit. 

At least one litre of water

(water available for filtering/treatment from streams

A waterproof shell

Enough snacks for a 3-5 hour very difficult trail run.

Run starts and finishes  at the Gibraltar parking lot.

Registration is between 7:30 and 8:45 a.m. the morning of the run. Cost is $20. All runners must fill out the waiver, as usual, at sign in.

At around the 21km mark is a 4 hour cut off. Runners beyond four and a half hours will return on the railtrail to the Gibraltar parking lot.This is to insure runners are back before dark which happens at 4:35 pm that time of the year. 

There is limited parking at the Start Line, so carpooling with friends is good. There is additional parking about 3 km south of the parking lot at Crawford's Falls, and about five parking spots 700m north of the Start Line at the Quarry (do not park in front of the gate).

Virtual Muffin Run

This year I am not organizing a Muffin Run as I usually have in the past, around this time of year. If you feel you have it in you though, please feel free to run the end-to-end route. The route begins at the Gibraltar Trail parking lot gate, and ends at the end of the Admiral Lake Loop at the other gate at the end of Bayer's Mill Road. The route is almost all on the singletrack wilderness trail, except for the first  ten metres or so, and the very last kilometre of double track.In total it is approximately 25km, and will take somewhere betweem 3 to 5 hours to complete.

Once you have completed the route, you can send me your time, and I will compile a list of runners that have completed it with your recorded time, gate-to-gate. If you send me your time, please make sure it does not deduct time for stoppage, as some watches have this funny little feature. And be honest, etc.

The trails are in amazing shape these days, and even if you don't do the full 25 you should go check out the trails. If you want to send me a time for a half loop, or variation I can include that in the compilation under a separate sub-section. If you want to do an out and back on the 25km route - 50km - please send me the info - I do not think this has ever been attempted! If you are planning on doing it, I am thinking sometime before the 15th of December will be the cutoff date to finish compiling the finishers. I can always add you later though, if you were busy training before that date : )

Please be careful out there, and run with snacks, charged mobile, a shell, water, and a buddy if possible.

2019 Muffin timing

I have never seen the trail as beautiful as Sunday morning with the low winter nearly solstice sun lighting up the interior of the woods! It was amazing, and the runners were amazing- look at the results! Holy smoking fast! Congratulations everyone and thanks to the volunteers Alexandria Alex Jack Karine Liz Al and Simon! Be sure to check David Garlock's awesome photographs of the run too- thanks Dave!

Jodi Isenor 1:47:50/1:17:50
Jeff Mosher 1:50:47/1:20:47
Tim Brooks 1:57:29/1:27:29
Tristan Cleveland 2:00:51/1:30:51
Kerry Coulen 2:08:33/1:38:33
René Julien 2:18:00/1:58:00
Frazer Egerton         2:31:57/2:01:57
Jody Little 2:33:15/2:03:15
Sean Cassidy 2:11:07
Tim Farmer 2:11:07
Steve Taylor 2:41:40/2:11:40
Matt Keith 2:43:00/2:13:00
Shane Patelakis 2:47:09/2:17:09
Rene Boucher 2:47:13/2:17:13
Krista Keirstead 2:35:21/2:25:21
Chris Morrison 3:12:40/2:42:40
Alena Richard 3:18:12/2:48:12
Jenny Koutroulakis 3:21:07/3:01:07
Kimberly von Boxtel 3:02:18

2019 Muffin Run scheduled

Musquodoboit Muffin Run Sunday December 8. Start at 10 am at Crawford's Falls. Distance is approximately 16km. Registration is on the morning of, and closes at 9:30 at the start/finish line. There is lots of parking on both sides of the bridge. There are no facilities at the start/finish. The start finish location is on Highway 357 (aka Meagher's Grant Rd) approximately 12km from the intersection of highways 357 and #7.  Coordinates of the start/finish are:  44.872673, -63.220254.

The are no feed stations on the trail. All runners must have at minimum a pack, a rain shell, a fully charged mobile phone, snacks and water. Registration is $20, and waivers must be signed at registration. There are no awards or prizes for this event- except everyone gets a muffin.

The course begins with approximately 4km of flat rail trail and finishes with about 2km of the same. In between is wilderness singletrack.

NEW! There are an additional 3 optional out-and-back sections on the singletrack segment. They appear at approximately 5 km, 7km, and 12.5km. These are very well marked with blue flagging tape and are steep descents/ascents. Each out and back has a book. Remove one page from each book you get to. You must show the captured pages to the finish timing. Each page deducts 9 minutes from your finishing time. If you get all 3 pages, you get 27 minutes faster! However keep in mind the energy required for these may result in added fatigue and have a deleterious result on the net time. Each out-and-back takes at least 3 minutes. Totally optional.

If you have not run this trail before you are in for a real treat, but please be aware of the extreme technical and physical demands specially of the middle10km section. It may sound short but the distance is compounded by all steep ascents and descents and numerous hops skips and jumps between boulders, and over roots. There are no flat straight sections in this segment of the trail. Trail specific running shoes are highly recommended. Studs or spikes are definitely allowed, and may or may not be helpful depending on environmental conditions.